NVMUG eNews 1/29/2002
Last updated 1/30/2002
Questions and Answers
I was scheduled to make a presentation on Mac OS X, but The Missing Manual was still missing. Midge learned that there were people with enough questions that it might fill the meeting. So we decided to start with questions and answers, and to go on to my discussion of Mac OS X if there was enough time or, if there wasn't, to postpone it until next month.
The result was a meeting with lots of participation, lots of excitement and animated discussion, lots of good information being exchanged, and enough organization so that I was able to take some notes.
1. The Meeting
It was a great meeting with a lot of people attending and participating. Midge suggested that we start with introductions, so here is the list in seating order except for Barry Hayes who came a later.
Ron Lay-Sleeper, Phyllis Joy Hammond, Marti Wicker, Michele Moore, Rick Flynn, Geof Gonter, Richard Lubot, Ruth Hay, Stephen Farber, Warren Walker, Midge Lubot, Hartley Jim Jackson, Barry Hayes
See pictures at:
Pictures 1
Pictures 2
Pictures 3
Midge said she knew there were people who had questions, and that maybe we should start with them and hold my presentation for later. Richard suggested that, in the meantime, maybe I would find The Missing Manual.
Maybe we should start most meetings this way. Save the presentation until after questions. That could lead to lively meetings and need for preparing fewer presentations. It also became apparent toward the end of the meeting that we should provide time for unscheduled presentations by people in attendance who have things they would like to show the group.
Wild simultaneous discussions broke out sporadically during the meeting. Pairs or small clusters of people around the room intensely discussing different topics.
Barry brought an iBook which he bought brand new from Mac Connection for $900 because it was a discontinued model Rick had his Titanium PowerBook sitting next to Barry's iBook. Rick has iPhoto, but was really impressed by GraphicConverter which is $35 shareware. Barry also had what looked like a professional digital camera, not surprising because Barry is a professional photographer. He took pictures of people in the room, and showed them full screen on his iBook. So I took a picture of him with my Nikon 775. A number of people clustered around Barry and Rick to watch and ask questions as the meeting dissolved.
Richard was test writing on my iBook at the time, to see if an iBook would work for their trips to New York. He thought it would
Geof had to leave, and Midge and Stephen were in another discussion.
The meeting may have been a little hectic at times, but there was great enthusiasm and a lot of information was shared. Barry saved his photos and gave me them on a CD. Based upon reader requests, we do not attach images to this eNews e-mail, but you can see the pictures taken at the meeting by clicking on the each of the three picture pages above.
2. Questions and Answers
Not Enough Memory?
Phyllis asked the first question because she has a problem. After she scans in a page using Photoshop, when she tries to print it, her iMac says she does not have enough room on her hard drive. At least that is the best that she could remember what it said. Then she can't print it, and can't quit the program. She has to turn her computer off.
There was a lot of discussion and suggestions: Geof said there are three kinds of memory, hard disk space, RAM, and the memory assigned to your program. That is why it is important to accurately get the error message. Someone said Adobe has forums that you can go in and ask questions. Rick said that the hard drive could be so fragmented that it may not have enough room. He recommended getting TechTool Pro and optimizing the hard disk. It made his Powerbook incredibly faster. Wayne said she could have changed resolution or something like that on the scanner making a huge file when 150 dpi should be adequate for a document.
Phyllis, checked printer and it is still working, but sometimes her printer will not work when she wants to print from her Netscape e-mail. Someone recommended that she copy the e-mail and paste into AppleWorks, or SimpleText, and print from the word processing document.
Michele said she did not have enough room on hard drive to install a Microsoft program. It is possible that she has a Tech Tool Trash Cache keeping everything in a hidden file that she has been trashing from her hard drive. If so, it can be corrected in her Tech Tool preferences.
Stephen said that in OS 8.x - OS 9.x, it is a good idea do double the recommended memory in your programs. Highlight the program and then Use Get Information under the File menu to change the bottom of the three memory numbers.
He also said that you can see if you have a reasonable amount of memory for the program by opening the program (and load the size of document, photograph, or database file you would be working with, then clicking on the desktop to open the finder, and go to the Apple menu and get information from About this Computer (or words like that). It will show a bar chart of your memory allocated and used. You can see how much of the allocated memory that your application is using.
Virtual memory uses hard disk space in place of RAM, except PhotoShop which uses its own virtual memory. Virtual memory is much slower than RAM. Stephen recommends setting your virtual memory in OS 8.6 - 9.x, to one meg greater than the actual physical RAM. RAM Doubler works well on systems before OS 8.6.
Recommended Information Sources
Michele recommends the The Little Mac Book
- or The Little iMac Book,
by Robin Williams. Geof agreed that she does fantastic books. Michele bought a copy on e-Bay.
Marti said she got some Mac Academy videos and CDs which were really good. She used them with her Mac Classic.
Photoshop Training
Phyllis has training material with Photoshop, but she cannot get past step 3. She said she was able to get a little farther with the computer she had before her iMac. Warren asked if she was sure she was on the correct layer. Michele said you have to make sure you are on the active layer. Go to the pallet and the active layer will be highlighted. (Does anyone know if there is a difference between the step 3 instructions for an iMac and an older Macintosh?)
Marti's Next Computer?
Marti has all her business stuff in her Mac Classic. Her printer printer fuser, whatever that is, is about to go and it would cost about $300 for new printer. She has no modem, and is thinking of buying a new Macintosh. She has been thinking about an iBook because it uses less room on the desktop, but she does not need a portable. If she bought an iBook, she thinks she would still want to have an Apple Pro keyboard.
Marti had a copy of the January 14, 2002, Time magazine with the Flat-Out Cool iMac on the cover and a multipage article inside.
It seemed like everyone pitched in with reasons why she should buy the new iMac. It is not portable, but at 20 pounds it is moveable. It is available with the Superdrive so she can read and burn DVDs as well as CDs. It is faster and comes with more memory than the iBook. The flat screen when powered by house current is much brighter and more vivid than the 9 volt powered flat screen of the portable. And, the 10 inch diameter base is no bigger than the 9 by 11 inch iBook.
Rick said he is glad he has the Titanium PowerBook, but sitting at home he doesn't need it, and she would get more for her money with the iBook. Geof said that traditionally you are five times more likely to have a lap top computer repaired than a desk top computer. Stephen said, if you have the $1,800 go buy it. Why waste time making decisions.
I believe she was convinced.
What Laser Printer?
Now, does anyone know which Laser Printer would be the best, not too expensive? She expects to get an ink jet printer as well, but needs a laser printer for legal reasons related to legal documents. Stephen recommended that she borrow a Macintosh, and use Sherlock ot ask for reviews of laser printers. macreviewzone.com or macworld.com might be a sources.
How To Move Confidential Data?
Marti asked how she would move data from the Classic to the new iMac while insuring confidentiality. There were many suggestions including sending the information to her iDisk on the Internet. Three people there had USB disk drives that she could borrow to use to copy her floppy disk back up information onto her new iMac.
She also would not want to connect to the Internet unless she was sure she could maintain confidentiality of her records.
I said that the odds that anyone would get at confidential records on your computer through the Internet, specially if you are connected intermittently by modem, are probably smaller than your odds of getting hit by lightning. Rick said that UNIX has a Firewall that can protect your information when you connect to the Internet. He also suggested that she would need a backup of her records because there is more of a chance of a virus destroying them than someone stealing them.
Stephen suggested keeping her records on a separate small FireWire hard drive. Just unplug the FireWire hard drive when you connect to the Internet and your records are absolutely safe.
Marti also wanted to know how long her information was safe on a diskette or ZIP drive. Richard said that CDs only cost about 35 cents each, and were the most permanent media for backups. She would be able to burn all of her data to one CD with the new iMac. She could easily make weekly CDs of everything, and CDs whenever anything really important was added to her files.
Spam?
Someone asked what they could do about spam, getting e-mail they do not want. At least two people are getting messages from Miss Cleo. Someone else said there is nothing you can do that will eliminate all spam without also eliminating some messages you may want, but you can use a filter to eliminate some spam.
Phyllis asked,What is a filter?The answer was that a filter is software that looks for some specific information in incoming messages, and screens out any messages with that specific information. Rick said EarthLink has Spanimator that screens out spam .
I use Mac OS X Mail which has Bounce. Just click Bounce, and it sends the message back to the originator as though it was never received. I have tried it twice, once it was returned with a message that it couldn't find the sender.
AppleCare?
Rick said that the alignment get off on his CD drive causing quite a clatter when an edge of his Titanium PowerBook flexes. Stephen recommends buying AppleCare for portable computers.
3. Comments About Mac OS X
Stephen said that in Mac OS X you generally install a package, not just a program. To install the package, you drag its icon, which looks just like a program's icon to were you want to keep it. You never have to worry if a program has enough memory assigned to it.
To uninstall an application in Mac OS X, you drag the package icon to the trash or another disk. You generally do not have to go looking for parts of the application elsewhere on your drive like you do when you install an OS 9 application
Programs do not use any significant memory in Mac OS X when they are not being used even if they are still on. So, in Mac OS X it is not generally necessary to turn programs off when you are done, and then back on a few minutes later. There is no problem with a dozen or more programs turned on.
Rick said that OS X works really really well, and for someone who is going to next leap, it would be a lot easier to go from OS 6 to Mac OS X than going through the steps in between,
Rick said for someone new to the Mac, there is a reason for coming out with the new system. Apple did it because they needed to. Mac OS X makes what you need to do move more smoothly and quickly. He said, "I don't have to know about memory. The only thing is if have enough total RAM. Get all the RAM you can.
There are ways that the new Mac OS X is simpler for new users, such as not having to worry about the memory a program needs. There are other ways, such as provisions for multiple users, that may make Mac OS X more difficult.
I said that the Mac OS X Mail program has Bounce that sends the message back to the source so that it looks like you never received it. I have started to use it when I receive unwanted e-mail, but have not yet tried to set up a filter to us it. There is just one problem when using Bounce. The spam I got was sent out over Yahoo, which is almost impossible to reach to disconnect, and the address of the sender in the spam was not real so the bounce did not reach the sender.
4. New Jersey Raffle
Midge received the following message. It was also announced by AUG to all the Macintosh user groups. A graphic was sent with it showing two Apple truck bodies on top of railroad cars.
FROM: Carole Dadino
DATE: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:20:56 -0500
TO: AREA MUGS
SUBJECT: MUGSNJ Raffle Reminder
Just a reminder that we, at MUGSNJ, have a Special Edition Lionel Apple Train we are raffling off at our February meeting. We've seen this same train offered over the internet at over $300.00. If you can get the word out to your User Group members I would appreciate it. The information and picture are on our Website MUGSNJ.org. Each ticket is $1.00 and only User Groups are eligible so the chance of winning is great. I must have all the information and checks by February 20th. Checks made out to MUGSNJ can be sent to me.
Carole Dadino
44 Buttonwood Road
Stratford, NJ 08084along with the names and phone numbers of those wanting to take a chance (or several) on this fantastic offer. I will personally write their name and phone number on tickets for the raffle.
Carole Dadino
5. Between NVMUG Meetings
OK, this worked so well with so much participation that I believe we should try this format for most meetings. First, we announce the meeting topic as we did at this one, then ask if people have questions, and ask if they have things they would like to present. As people join the meeting later, we should ask them the same two questions. Then Midge and/or the group can decide whether to start with the questions, individual presentations, or the program. The presenter may also use this information to modify the presentation to fit the wishes of the group. This may mean that some presentations may be spread over more than one meeting, but if it leads to lively informative meetings that are fun, who cares?
I would be interested in your comments, and might include them in the meeting reminder for February's meeting.
Between meetings, if you have a question or if you have some new information that you would like to present to NVMUG, please let me know. I can send the question to everyone or to those I believe might have the answer, and I can get the information out to our members. Just send a reply to this eNews containing your question or information./p>
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